Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Feminism

In honor of International Women’s Day.

By
Elsa de Berker

Mar 8, 2017

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A time to reflect on the progress made by women throughout the world, International Women’s Day celebrates the unique role females have in their countries and communities. The day’s theme is to consider how far female empowerment has come—and consider how best to accelerate the changes that still need to happen to bring gender equality to all women.

Here, in her celebrated TED Talk “We Should All Be Feminists,” African writer Chimanda Ngozi Adichie outlines the mental shift both men and women need to make in order to effectively end discrimination and foster long lasting equality:

"Gender is not an easy conversation to have,” says Adichie. “It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable.

Some people ask: 'Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?' Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general - but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem acknowledge that.”

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